Are there lexical or syntactic differences in how SES groups perform different pragmatic functions in CDS?

• In Event: Poster Session 14
  In Poster Session: PS 14 Topic - Language, Communication

Abstract

Early linguistic environment has shown an impact on children’s latter language development (Hart & Risley, 1995). In particular, child-directed speech (CDS) contribution to language development has been associated with providing children with linguistic input from which to look for regularities and patterns, and boosting children to produce utterances beyond their current linguistic competence (Hoff-Ginsberg, 1986). Some studies, mainly with North American and Western Europe populations (Hoff-Ginsberg, 1991, 1998; Rowe, 2008) have provided evidence that the pragmatic function of CDS differs across socio-economic groups. Here we aim to analyze the pragmatic function of child directed utterances and their linguistic features in an understudied population from the Metropolitan Area of Buenos Aires, Argentina. Specifically, the analysis focused on the distribution of utterances with different types of pragmatic functions addressed to low and middle SES children, as well as the lexical diversity and the syntactic complexity of each of these types of utterances. Forty children (age: 8-20 months) were recorded in their homes for 4 hours during daily life. Drawing on Snow et al. (1976) and Jackson-Maldonado et. al (2011), the pragmatic function of CDS utterances were coded in action requests, comments, information requests and rituals. The lexical diversity (VOCD) of each type of pragmatic utterance and their syntactic complexity (MLU) was analyzed using CLAN (MacWhinney, 2000). Preliminary results showed significant SES differences between the relative number of certain types of pragmatic utterances: comments (t(38)=-4.072, SE=-10.63, p<0.001) were more frequent in the middle-SES group; action requests (t(38)=3.79, SE=13.89, p=.001) were more frequent in the low-SES group. Only the lexical diversity of action requests showed significant differences between groups (t(37)=-2.737, SE=-8.1,p <0.01). No other pragmatic function showed a significant difference in lexical diversity nor in syntactic complexity between groups. Overall, results replicate the SES differences in the distribution of utterances with different pragmatic functions identified in other populations (a greater proportion of directives and a lesser proportion of comments in the input to low SES children than in the input to the middle SES group). The fact that only lexical diversity differentiates actions requests in both groups may indicate that SES differences in general indexes of qualitative characteristics of input may be, to a certain extent, mediated by the pragmatic function of child directed utterances. Future studies will delve into a longitudinal analysis of the linguistic properties (lexical diversity and syntactic complexity) of child directed utterances with different pragmatic functions in different socioeconomic groups in this population.

Authors

• Laura Ramírez., Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas (CONICET)
  Presenting Author

• Maia Julieta Migdalek, Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas (CONICET)
  Non-Presenting Author

• Celia R Rosemberg, Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas (CONICET)
  Non-Presenting Author